Date: 1789
"Are there not causes enough to which the apparent inferiority of an African may be ascribed, without limiting the goodness of God, and supposing he forbore to stamp understanding on certainly his own image, because 'carved in ebony.'"
preview | full record— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)
Date: 1789
"Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and every noble sentiment?"
preview | full record— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)
Date: 1789
"They [African customs] had been implanted in me with great care, and made an impression on my mind, which time could not erase, and which all the adversity and variety of fortune I have since experienced served only to rivet and record; for, whether the love of one's country be real or imaginary...
preview | full record— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)
Date: 1789
"Though you were early forced from my arms, your image has been always rivetted in my heart, from which neither time nor fortune have been able to remove it; so that, while the thoughts of your sufferings have damped my prosperity, they have mingled with adversity and increased its bitterness."
preview | full record— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)
Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"Its anodyne powers [Miss George's singing] the sick'ning make cheery, / And tears off the chain from the mind of the weary."
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
Date: 1789
"Here lies her bracelet of flowers, exquisitely perfumed by the root of sĂura which had been spread on her bosom: it has fallen from her delicate wrist, and is become a new chain for my heart."
preview | full record— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)
Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"Like a snow-ball, the mind, fraught with peace in its prime, / Moves swiftly adown the steep shelvings of Time; / Accumulates filth from Society's sons, / And strengthens and hardens its coat as it runs; / Till habit on habit is negligent laid, / And the object appears motley, vile, and ill-made...
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
Date: 1789
"Far nobler prize my heart constrains, / Yielding to soft controul; / Far other beauty binds in chains / The magnet of my soul."
preview | full record— Colvill, Robert (d. 1788)
Date: 1789
"'Tis [the letter of the law] the birdlime of reason to fasten our senses."
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
Date: 1789
"The third, / More absurd, / Than the iron-fed bird; / And whose brains lacked juice like an over-squeezed curd, / Had nothing of value to give but her--Word."
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)